Life Force Fitness

Are you bored of your arm workout?

There are plenty of novelty lifts you can try. Here is one of them.

With the prone curl, you end up with the biceps as short as it can go just at the point where gravity is acting most strongly. When you tense a muscle that is as short as it can be, and it won’t shorten any further, we call that active insufficiency.

When you load a muscle at the point of active insufficiency, you tend to get an intense contraction, a cramping feeling. You also compress the muscle and the blood vessels so that blood pools in the muscle. That tends to be good for a pump.

So, while this exercise isn’t as good for developing size as some of the more traditional lifts, it’s good as a finisher if you’re trying to end with a wicked pump. 💪

Have you got sleepy glutes?

Your glutes are crucial for posture and movement. But the glutes are often inactive because of prolonged sitting. This causes the hip flexors to become really tight, which switches off the glutes. But the opposite is also true. If you switch on the glutes, it’ll loosen up and switch off the hips. This ability of opposing muscles to switch each other off is called reciprocal inhibition.

The bridge is a great exercise for activating the glutes and stretching the hips at the same time. However, the bridge is often performed poorly, and the lower back becomes arched, which exacerbates posture and movement dysfunctions.

But you can take the lower back out of the movement by bringing one knee up to your chest and performing the bridge on one leg. This exercise is called the Cook hip lift. And because you’re performing the bridge on a single leg, you’ll need more force. That will produce better activation of the glutes and really fire them up.

Do you get lower back ache?

Your upper back could be the culprit.

If your upper back is stiff, your lower back may take its place in movements like reaching up or even in standing posture. You may improve your lower back pain if you improve your upper back first. The upper back should rotate, bend sideways and bend forwards and backwards.

You can train rotational mobility using twisting movements. Here’s a classic Pilates movement. Normally, you would do this sitting on the floor or on a block. But I’m seated on a bench. It works just as well as long as you remember to keep your hips stable.

On the out-breath, twist to one side and wring out your spine like it was a cloth. Go back to the middle, take another breath and then on the out-breath, take it the other way. Do this four or five times, and you should get a little further each time. Perform this drill regularly, and you’ll improve your mobility in the thoracic spine.

Do you get shoulder pain when you raise your arm into the YMCA ‘Y’ position?
And don’t pretend you’ve never done the arm movements to that song. 😂
Anyway, if you do, you may have a tight pec minor. This is a smaller muscle that sits under the pec major. It attaches from the ribs up onto the coracoid process of the shoulder blade. When the pec minor is tight, it protracts the shoulder blades. In other words, it pulls them apart and causes the shoulders to round.
It’s very common for the pec minor to be tight, generally caused by prolonged sitting and hunching over. This can cause poor posture, movement dysfunction and pain, especially when reaching up and out.
Strengthening the muscles that oppose the forces of the pec minor will help, as will some deep tissue massage. But you can also stretch the pec minor. In the video, you’ll see a simple stretch that you can do any time you’re feeling a bit rounded. Why not give it a go, see if you can identify tightness in the muscle and whether you feel some improvement after the stretch?

Do your knees collapse inwards when you’re squatting, deadlifting or leg pressing?

You don’t really want that to happen when you’re lifting a lot of weight. For a start, it will reduce your overall power output, but it may also injure you or cause a ni**le.

A common cause of this pattern is your glute medius failing to fire sufficiently strongly. But there are a few drills you can use to activate and strengthen them. Here is one of them.

The banded bridge has the advantage of also working your glute max, so you get a full glute activation, just as you would in the squat or deadlift. Put the band around your knees and push it apart. Keep the tension on the band at all times during the movement. Tilt your pelvis backwards, push your feet into the floor, peel your spine off the mat and keep your core engaged to prevent your lower back arching. Squeeze your glutes and push the band apart at the top. Put your spine back on the mat one vertebra at a time, then repeat.

If you do that regularly, you should see a difference in the way your squat looks and the force you can generate.

Do you get shoulder pain when you raise your arm into the YMCA ‘Y’ position?

And don’t pretend you’ve never done the arm movements to that song. 😂

Anyway, if you do, you may have a tight pec minor. This is a smaller muscle that sits under the pec major. It attaches from the ribs up onto the coracoid process of the shoulder blade. When the pec minor is tight, it protracts the shoulder blades. In other words, it pulls them apart and causes the shoulders to round.

It’s very common for the pec minor to be tight, generally caused by prolonged sitting and hunching over. This can cause poor posture, movement dysfunction and pain, especially when reaching up and out.

Strengthening the muscles that oppose the forces of the pec minor will help, as will some deep tissue massage. But you can also stretch the pec minor. In the video, you’ll see a simple stretch that you can do any time you’re feeling a bit rounded. Why not give it a go, see if you can identify tightness in the muscle and whether you feel some improvement after the stretch?